Computer Audio: confusing, complicated, & INCONVENIENT. About MUSIC or inner nerd?

[Phelonious Ponk]

I didn't start claiming anything at all. It's you who started it. Please don't confuse my first post as a claim such as 'CD transport/player is superior.' I never said that in the first post. I said 'some was over-confident enough to say it's even better than expensive disc players/transport.'. It's not the same statement as I said 'expensive cd transport/player is better than file transport' but pointing out there's people saying the opposite. I hope this will clear out our confusion here.

The only matter of fact I firstly said here was 'some people were over-confident enough to claim it's better than expensive cd transport'. That's all there is to it as the matter of fact not opinion. I actually could say the same too since my music server projects already outperformed many CD transports under $3k and it's not me but my clients who said all that. I weren't that confident enough to say it out myself. No my opinion about cd transport being superior to file or anything explicitly implied until you claimed that some of your files ripped to your hard drive are better than they are on discs they came from. So I disagreed with information from my experiments and my studies in proper classes with many experiments from real hiend sources. But if I have to say so, I've yet to see any hifi distributor selling real hiend sources prefer any kind of music server over their reference cd/sacd transport except when they're doing their marketing jobs.

To get back to the point, all I've said so far is for asking to know your support evidence about "sometimes files ripped to my hard drive are better than they are on the discs they came from". So please ignore all my foolish posts and just tell me how you reached to the conclusion. That's what I really want to know so that I could try repeating the same experiment as yours and see if I could reach to the same conclusion as yours as I couldn't with other experiments I tried here ranging from bundle slotin drive in laptop to one of the best studio mastering drive. Ripping and playing with the same drive and same program. No matter what kind here, drive always be better than files stored in HDD.

I hope you'll be kind enough to share how you reached to that conclusion in here so people can try and see as guidelines in case I may miss out something. Playing ripped contents to compare with original drive is different story from comparing between mastering file from file transport and disc from cd/sacd transport. I tried writing 16/44.1 track from Kent Poon DVD I bought but never manage to rip it back as the same as original file I wrote to CD even with Plextor Premium 2 here using EAC/dbpoweramp/PlexTools. They sound different and I'm trying to findout why and how I can correct this so I could restart my ripping journey again. Though I'm quite skilled at building music server for file transport but I may not have everything covered for ripping part.

I reached that conclusing by sticking a Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers CD that had always had a digital read error on it, in the slot-fed optical drive of my MacBook Pro, ripping it to my hard drive using that esoteric, high-end CD ripping software, iTunes, with the result of a file on my hard drive without the error. The conclusion was supported by a couple of more CDs with errors on them that were corrected in the ripping process. It was denied by one CD error that would not correct.Has anyone else experienced this when ripping CDs to hard drive?

I already answered that question a couple of times, by the way, though not with quite that level of detail. The problem seems to be your ability to believe it. Unfortunately I'm not sure you could actually repeat the experiment without having my copy of Into The Great Wide Open.

Now, you seem to have been, at the very least, implying strongly that, above a certain price/quality level ($3k or so, is it?), an optical transport out-performs servers on the noise and jitter fronts. You evidently believed that was the subject of our discussion at one point, as you were trying to ascertain my ability to understand any supporting evidence you might present regarding jitter. Thank yor for that kind consideration, but no answer, clear or cryptic, has come forth. Do you have anything to support the notion that high-end optical drives have lower noise and jitter than servers, or are you now saying that you don't believe they do?

Tim

 

[Audioseduction]

Also, some playback software lets you decode the files, store them in memory, and then start playback. This eliminates any issues of differences between where the media is originally stored and even the file format it is stored in like FLAC, WAV, etc.

Exactly how I have JRiver Media Center v19 setup.

 

[dingus]

I reached that conclusing by sticking a Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers CD that had always had a digital read error on it, in the slot-fed optical drive of my MacBook Pro, ripping it to my hard drive using that esoteric, high-end CD ripping software, iTunes, with the result of a file on my hard drive without the error. The conclusion was supported by a couple of more CDs with errors on them that were corrected in the ripping process. It was denied by one CD error that would not correct.Has anyone else experienced this when ripping CDs to hard drive?

one of the things i love about ripping to a server is it either rips without error, or it doesnt and the cd gets tossed. the latter has happened once in the 4 years since i went to a server based system. i dont have to worry about the quality of the cd or the ripped files, because now i no longer need to.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

one of the things i love about ripping to a server is it either rips without error, or it doesnt and the cd gets tossed. the latter has happened once in the 4 years since i went to a server based system. i dont have to worry about the quality of the cd or the ripped files, because now i no longer need to.

Given the number of used CDs I've found, the small number of errors I've run into is a testimony to the durability of the small plastic disc. iTunes has repaired, I believe, all but one of them.

Tim

 

[Alrainbow]

This is a great topic and some very honest statements being posted. However I have one and I do not think it's posted as yet. Has anyone started a thread to give opinions on CPU / DAC findings by sound quality. What I mean is CPU greatly effect synergy of digital data playback. Now for me having a music server of one of two kinds kinda solved this. First off is a truditional music server over USB or coax no external CPU . As in my krell connect. As it does not play dsd and only PCM I can say it is consistant in great sound quality to any dac I have tried it. For me it's just as good as a caps in sound and it only does coax or political .
Next is a true CPU server not a dedicated caps as they are also pretty much the same with any dac. But once we lieave this realm of server there is a serious drop off and no one seems to post about it. Some here spend big money on interconnects as in USB or coax . But as I have played with some 20 dacs or so the connected CPU matters way more than a diamond USB cable. And also I feel the majority here do not have a caps or true music server . So why no posting about it.
Every dac I have ever tried was effectd by CPU type or speed. And strictly type or speed not to cloud things up with SS drives and foil on the internal wiring just the actual say store bought CPU weather PC or Mac. Any thoughts on this or am I way off base .
Al

 

[Windows X]

Thanks for clarifying that. So it's about reading error on CD and ripping on computer can correct it. Honestly speaking, the issue of playing CD on CD transport and getting playback problem was never once occurred in my life. Probably because of Esoteric transports or my plastic discs weren't that worn out enough. So the thought of ripped file could be better than where it came from as correcting ripping error never crossed my mind because I never have such problem with Esoteric drive or even computer drive playback. So it's not about the playback quality of ripped contents but being able to get the data or not. I see. I see.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Thanks for clarifying that. So it's about reading error on CD and ripping on computer can correct it. Honestly speaking, the issue of playing CD on CD transport and getting playback problem was never once occurred in my life. Probably because of Esoteric transports or my plastic discs weren't that worn out enough. So the thought of ripped file could be better than where it came from as correcting ripping error never crossed my mind because I never have such problem with Esoteric drive or even computer drive playback. So it's not about the playback quality of ripped contents but being able to get the data or not. I see. I see.

Yes, the point of my original post, which should have been delivered with a , was that error-free is better quality. The relative sonic quality of the same error-free track, played on a transport and on a server is, of course, another question.

Tim

 

[spiritofmusic]

Gentlemen, I'm entering this thread fairly late in the day, at the behest of Bonzo75. He's firmly of the opinion that room acoustics/system integration is king, trumping all other considerations such as power cables, supports, power/grounding. At this point I can't disagree w/him, having never heard digital room management like Dirac (although I don't go w/him re dismissing system tweaks).
My first q is: does anyone here use Dirac etc w/a predominantly analog based system (my listening is 90% lp v 10% cd)? I personally can't get past the concept of digitising the analog signal, but I know there are uber high end components like the Wadax that even hard core analogphiles like Roy Gregory feel push on the state of the art, even w/ in effect a digital phono stage.

 

[bonzo75]

Sorry, I totally believe in tweaks, in shun mooks, synergistic research tweaks, Schumann resonators, room treatment. All I am saying is it is worth exploring if correction can offer more, and if it does, it will provide a higher benefit. I actually haven't explored it myself. With that corrected, over to spirit of music's question

Also, like I said, the cost of trying is low, whether through analog or digital shouldn't be the concern at this stage, maybe later for fine tuning if you think it works

 

[bonzo75]

Spirit, Keith runs dirac on his system. Also you might want to start a fresh thread, this might not get everybody's attention.